Realtor trying to sell newspaper business on Kijiji

In the golden age of newspapers, classified advertising was a cash cow. It launched profit margins through the roof and doubled as a place for community announcements, farmers market listings and posting small items for sale.

Then Craigslist happened. At least one study estimates that Craigslist removed about $5-billion from the coffers of North American newspapers.

That’s no small chunk of change.

Soon after Craigslist went live, Kijiji followed suit. Kijiji is owned by eBay and is now challenging the old master for dominance in the online classifieds world.

So it’s a touch ironic when a realtor in Peterborough, Ont. used Kijiji to post a newspaper business for sale for $70,000.

The listing has been active in realtor circles since May, according to Sutton All Pro Realty’s Ben vanVeen. But it went live on Kijiji at the end of July and was slowly circulated through social media in the middle of August.

vanVeen told Canada.com that he had fielded calls about the Kijiji posting from at least three media outlets already, and was wondering why this posting was attracting such attention.

“The world’s always changing,” he said. “We need our listings to be where the buyers are looking.”

“They’re selling because they’ve owned it for 10 years and it’s a profitable business,” he added. “They’ve grown it and they want to move on to other endeavours.”

What makes this listing a little special is that the business is currently being run out of its owners’ home. So there is no actual real estate to transfer, just the business.

“Their needs are the same, just because they don’t have any typical real estate to sell,” vanVeen said. “They don’t have the time to sell it themselves, they still want someone to negotiate on their behalf.”

The business has had some expressions of interest, but all interested parties are being asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent the name of the publication from going public. The current owners, vanVeen said, want to protect customers and advertisers from any sense of uncertainty until they know exactly what will become of the company.